Roy Foster mentioned the fact that Quinn gave his book the same title as Devlin’s to show how indifferent most southern politicians were to what happened in the North. Have to admit, he had a point. The first ‘Straight Left’ is an interesting book. I’d say there are bricks more interesting and readable than the second one.

Yep. Devlin’s was “Straight Left – an Autobiography” as opposed to Quinn’s “political journey”.
I’ve read neither but I did read Devlin’s excellent Yes We Have No Bananas, about the Outdoor Relief riots in Belfast in the 30s. In which Catholic and Protestant rioted together against government austerity policies and the Falls and Shankill marching bands marched together playing the only tune they held in common – Yes We Have No Bananas. Good times.

He might have had a point, but not the one he thought he had. Quinn’s family roots are in Newry, his grandfather was a senior IRA officer there during the Tan war. Quinn was the SDLP’s main fundraiser/ contact man in the Labour party

“In 1981, Dublin County Council tried to open the new Tallaght By-pass, home to over 100 Traveller families, without offering them any alternative site. The events which followed in Tallaght were to be repeated on a smaller scale all over the country. Local residents, with the active support of some local politicians, including a Fianna Fáil councillor, organised protest marches. Vigilante type gangs patrolled around all open space in the area in order to force Travellers out of Tallaght.

A small number of local activists joined with a small number of Travellers to resist this racism and formed the Travellers’ Rights Committee. This committee existed for almost two years until it gave way to the first ever ‘Traveller only’ organisation, Minceir Misli, set up in 1983. The Travellers Rights Committee put up a Traveller candidate, Nan Joyce, in the general election of 1982. She ran against the straightforwardly racist ‘community’ candidate who stood on a ticket of Get the Knackers out of Tallaght . She got twice as many first preference votes.”

As an aside Martin Ward was elected to Tuam Town Council in 1999 and was Mayor of Tuam in 2003.

At a conference I was at a few years ago, Rosaleen McDonagh objected to somebody saying that David Joyce is the first Traveller to become a barrister. She said that these claims of “the first” or “there never has been” about Travellers had two problems. One is that they haven’t been checked — a Traveller may have done something decades ago and it is not remembered. The second is that many Travellers have done things but are not known by most others to be a Traveller.

[…] Answers to CLR Political Quiz 20 1. Ruairi Quinn 2. Believed to be the first traveller to stand for the Dail. 3. Peoples Party of Ireland 4. Jerry Cowley in Mayo 5. Lowest recorded number of votes in a General Election with 13 in Dublin North West in 1997 6. Fine Gael 7. Michael Lowry 8. Yes in the 1991 Local Elections in North Inner City ward. 9. Marc Coleman 10. Frank Cluskey […]